The Crown of India was a masque, an elaborate theatrical presentation, staged in 1912 to celebrate the visit the preceding December of King George V and Queen Mary to Delhi for their coronation as Emperor and Empress of India. For this, Sir Edward Elgar wrote the music as his Op. 66, with a libretto by Henry Hamilton. The masque consisted of two tableaux: 'The Cities of Ind' and 'Ave Imperator!'. First performed in 1912, it consists of twelve pieces for contralto, bass, chorus and orchestra. The Crown of India March from the incidental music for the masque is usually performed separately. The complete score for the Crown of India incidental music was only published in a piano-vocal version by Elgar's friend Hugh Blair. The remaining orchestral parts were destroyed in the 1960s. In 2007 the Elgar Society commissioned the composer Anthony Payne to complete the orchestration of the music for The Crown of India. Payne is to "complete the scoring of the piano-vocal version and combining this, where appropriate, with the orchestral suite and march.
